LANGUAGE IN INDIA Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow Volume 14:1 January 2014 ISSN 1930-2940 Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D. Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D. B. A. Sharada, Ph.D. A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D. Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D. Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D. S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D. G. Baskaran, Ph.D. L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D. C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics) Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A. Inflectional Processes of Tense and Aspect in Bodo Daimalu Brahma, M.A., Ph.D. Scholar ================================================================== Abstract The Bodos are living in different parts of Assam for centuries. They speak a language called Bodo that belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family of languages and it is one of the Associate state languages in Assam. It is a recognized language in the 8th Schedule of Indian constitution. Tense and Aspects are the grammatical categories, used in the grammatical description of verbs. Tense refers to the absolute location of event or action in time, e.g., past, present or future. And aspect refers to how an action or event is to be viewed with respect to time; it expresses actual location in time. The present paper is an attempt to look into the inflectional processes of the tense and aspect of Bodo. The paper will discuss the use of various types of Tense and Aspect markers found in Bodo. Bodo uses mainly three type of tenses, viz., Past, Present and Future. Past and future have separate tense markers, but present tense has no separate tense marker in this language. Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:1 January 2014 Daimalu Brahma, M.A., Ph.D. Scholar Inflectional Processes of Tense and Aspect in Bodo 819 The past tense marker is {-mɯn} and the future is {-gɯn}. The present tense is used in the verbs as unmarked. There are four types of aspects found in this language, namely, Habitual, Progressive, Perfective and Perfect. The inflectional processes are ‘verb + aspect’, ‘verb + aspect + tense’, ‘verb + tense’ and ‘noun + tense’, etc. It is hoped that this analysis of tense and aspect in Bodo will help us in understanding tense and aspect in Bodo. 1. Introduction Bodo is the name of a language as well as community. It is a major tribe of North- eastern India and it belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family. According to P. C. Bhattacharya (1977) “the ‘Bodo’ word is first applied by Hodgson”1. The Bodo is known as Bodo or Boro, Kachary, Kirata, Mech, etc., in different places and different times. In course of time they came to be known simply as Bodo or Boro. In the Constitution of India, the language is recognized as Bodo. The Bodo speakers are mainly found in the Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang, Udalgury, Kamrup, Goalpara, Karbianglong, and Dhemazi districts of Assam as well as in some adjacent areas of West Bengal, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. As per the classification given by Robert Shafer, the Bodo language belongs to the branches of Barish section under the Baric division of the Sino-Tibetan language family (P.C. Bhattacharya 1977). The Linguistic Survey of India describes the Bodo language as a member of the Bodo sub-section under the Assam-Burmese group of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibeto-Chinese speech family (Linguistic Survey of India, Vol-III, Part-II). 2. Objectives The main objectives of this paper are given below: 1. To find out the different types of tense and aspects in Bodo. 2. To investigate the different types of tense and aspect markers in this language. 3. To find out how the tense and aspects are inflected in the words. 3. Methodology Data are collected from two main sources, viz., primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are collected from several informants of different age groups through the 1 P. C. Bhattacharya, A Descriptive Analysis of the Bodo Language (Gauhati University Publication Department, 2007, Reprint). 1-7. Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:1 January 2014 Daimalu Brahma, M.A., Ph.D. Scholar Inflectional Processes of Tense and Aspect in Bodo 820 schedule and interview method. Secondary sources are collected from renowned books, Internet and Ph.D. theses. 4. Tense “The term ‘tense’ is derived from a Latin translation of a Greek word “khronos” which means ‘time’ (Lyons 1968)2. It is inflected to the verbs used to indicate the time of action. According to David Crystal (1980) “a category used in the grammatical description of verbs (along with Aspect and Mood), referring primary to the way the grammar marks the time at which the action denoted by the verb took place. Traditionally, a distinction is made between past, present and future tenses, often with further divisions perfect, pluperfect, etc.”3 According to the time of Action, there are mainly three types of tense found in Bodo viz., present, past and future tense. Consider the following examples: Present tense: aŋ ɯŋkham zajɯ “I eat rice.” aŋ ɯŋkham za-jɯ I rice eat-HAB aŋ nowao thaŋgasinɯ doŋ “I am going home.” aŋ no-wao thaŋ-gasinɯ doŋ I house-NOM go-PROG be Past tense: aŋ ɯŋkham zajɯmɯn “I used to eat rice.” aŋ ɯŋkham za-jɯ-mɯn I rice eat-HAB-PAST aŋ nowao thaŋgasinɯ doŋmɯn “I was going home.” aŋ no-wao thaŋ-gasinɯ doŋ-mɯn I house-NOM go-PROG be-PAST Future tense: aŋ ɯŋkham za-gɯn “I shall eat rice.” 2 Widinibou, A Descriptive Analysis of Liangmai (Unpublished Thesis, Assam University, Silchar2011). 179. 3 David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (Blackwell, USA, 2000, Reprint). 384. Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:1 January 2014 Daimalu Brahma, M.A., Ph.D. Scholar Inflectional Processes of Tense and Aspect in Bodo 821 aŋ ɯŋkham za-gɯn I rice eat-FUT From the above examples, it is clear that Bodo has three types of tenses. These are the present, the past and the future tenses. It is also found that the past and future tenses have separate tense markers, but the present tense has no marker. The past tense marker is {-mɯn} and the future tense marker is {-gɯn}. The {-jɯ} and {-gasinɯ} markers are not the present tense markers, whereas the {-jɯ} is a habitual aspect marker and {-gasinɯ} is a progressive aspect marker. The present tense is inflected to the verbs without marking in this language. 4.1. Past tense marker: {-mɯn} There is only one past tense marker found in Bodo, and that is the {-mɯn}. It is added to the verbs to indicate the action of the verbs took place in the past. For example: 1. Ritaja mɯja mɯsadɯŋmɯn “Rita danced yesterday.” Rita-ja mɯja mɯsa-dɯŋ-mɯn Rita-NOM yesterday dance-PFV-PAST 2. aŋ goi zabaimɯn “I had eaten the betel nut.” aŋ goi za-bai-mɯn I betel nut eat-PRF-PAST 4.2. Future tense marker: {-gɯn}, {-sɯi}, {-la} There are three types of future tense markers found in Bodo, which indicate the action of the verbs in future time. The {-gɯn} marker is used to indicate the indefinite future tense, the {-sɯi} indicates the definite future tense and the {-la} is used to indicate the negative future tense. Consider the following examples: Indefinite future tense marker: {-gɯn} 1. aŋ thaŋgɯn “I shall go.” aŋ thaŋ-gɯn I go-IND.FUT 2. bijɯ phɯigɯn “He/she will come.” Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:1 January 2014 Daimalu Brahma, M.A., Ph.D. Scholar Inflectional Processes of Tense and Aspect in Bodo 822 bi-jɯ phɯi-gɯn he/she-NOM come-IND.FUT Definite future tense marker: {-sɯi} or {-nɯsɯi} 1. aŋ dɯi lɯŋsɯi “I am going to drink water.” aŋ dɯi lɯŋ-sɯi I water drink-DEF.FUT 2. phɯrɯŋgirija phɯrɯŋsɯi “The teacher is going to teach.” phɯrɯŋgiri-ja phɯrɯŋ-sɯi teacher-NOM teach-DEF.FUT 3. bibara barnɯsɯi “The flower is going to bloom.” bibar-a bar-nɯsɯi flower-NOM bloom-DEF.FUT Negative future tense marker: {-la} or {-lija} 1. bibarija thaŋla “Bibari will not go.” bibari-ja thaŋ-la Bibari-NOM go-NEG.FUT 2. aŋ gabɯn phɯila “I shall not come tomorrow.” aŋ gabɯn phɯi-la I tomorrow come-NEG.FUT 3. bijɯ phɯilija “He/she will not come.” bi-jɯ phɯi-lija He/she-NOM come-NEG.FUT 5. Aspect “Aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event or state, denoted by a verb relates to the flow of time.”4 According to the David Crystal, aspect is “a category used in the grammatical description of verbs (along with tense and mood), referring 4 htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/grammatical_aspect. Language in India www.languageinindia.com ISSN 1930-2940 14:1 January 2014 Daimalu Brahma, M.A., Ph.D. Scholar Inflectional Processes of Tense and Aspect in Bodo 823 primarily to the way the grammar marks the duration or type of temporal activity denoted by the verb.”5 There are four types of aspects found in Bodo, viz., Habitual, Progressive, Perfective and Perfect aspect. Every aspect is inflected to the verb’s own specific markers. These are discussed below: 5.1. Habitual Aspect: {-ɯ} or {-jɯ} The {-jɯ} is an allomorph of {-ɯ}. When a verb has /a/ and /w/ in its final phoneme, it is changed by {-jɯ}. Consider the following examples: 1. aŋ sanphrɯmbɯ mondir-ao thaŋ-ɯ I everyday temple-LOC go-HAB “I go to temple everyday.” 2. bimol-a ruthi za-jɯ nathai aŋ ɯŋkham zajɯ bimol-NOM roti eat-HAB but I rice eat-HAB “Bimol use to eat roti but I eat rice.” 5.2.